Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

High Availability Add-On

Overview
Overview of the High Availability Add-On for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Edition 6

Red Hat Engineering Content Services

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

Overview of the High Availability Add-On for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Edition 6

Red Hat Engineering Co ntent Services

do cs-need-a-fix@redhat.co m

Legal Notice
Copyright 2010 Red Hat, Inc. and others.
T his document is licensed by Red Hat under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
License. If you distribute this document, or a modified version of it, you must provide attribution to Red
Hat, Inc. and provide a link to the original. If the document is modified, all Red Hat trademarks must be
removed.
Red Hat, as the licensor of this document, waives the right to enforce, and agrees not to assert, Section
4d of CC-BY-SA to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.
Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Shadowman logo, JBoss, MetaMatrix, Fedora, the Infinity Logo,
and RHCE are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries.
Linux is the registered trademark of Linus T orvalds in the United States and other countries.
Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
XFS is a trademark of Silicon Graphics International Corp. or its subsidiaries in the United States
and/or other countries.
MySQL is a registered trademark of MySQL AB in the United States, the European Union and other
countries.
Node.js is an official trademark of Joyent. Red Hat Software Collections is not formally related to or
endorsed by the official Joyent Node.js open source or commercial project.
T he OpenStack Word Mark and OpenStack Logo are either registered trademarks/service marks or
trademarks/service marks of the OpenStack Foundation, in the United States and other countries and
are used with the OpenStack Foundation's permission. We are not affiliated with, endorsed or
sponsored by the OpenStack Foundation, or the OpenStack community.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Abstract
High Availability Add-On Overview provides an overview of the High Availability Add-On for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
.Introduction
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4. . . . . . . . . .
1. Document Conventions
4
1.1. T ypographic Conventions
5
1.2. Pull-quote Conventions
6
1.3. Notes and Warnings
7
2. We Need Feedback!
7
.Chapter
. . . . . . . . 1.
. . .High
. . . . .Availability
. . . . . . . . . . . .Add-On
. . . . . . . . Overview
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9. . . . . . . . . .
1.1. Cluster Basics
9
1.2. High Availability Add-On Introduction
10
1.3. Cluster Infrastructure
10
.Chapter
. . . . . . . . 2.
. . .Cluster
. . . . . . . .Management
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .with
. . . . .CMAN
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
............
2.1. Cluster Quorum
12
2.1.1. Quorum Disks
13
2.1.2. T ie-breakers
13
.Chapter
. . . . . . . . 3.
. . .RGManager
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
............
3.1. Failover Domains
15
3.1.1. Behavior Examples
16
3.2. Service Policies
16
3.2.1. Start Policy
17
3.2.2. Recovery Policy
17
3.2.3. Restart Policy Extensions
17
3.3. Resource T rees - Basics / Definitions
18
3.3.1. Parent / Child Relationships, Dependencies, and Start Ordering
18
3.4. Service Operations and States
18
3.4.1. Service Operations
18
3.4.1.1. T he freeze Operation
19
3.4.1.1.1. Service Behaviors when Frozen
19
3.4.2. Service States
19
3.5. Virtual Machine Behaviors
20
3.5.1. Normal Operations
20
3.5.2. Migration
20
3.5.3. RGManager Virtual Machine Features
21
3.5.3.1. Virtual Machine T racking
21
3.5.3.2. T ransient Domain Support
21
3.5.3.2.1. Management Features
21
3.5.4. Unhandled Behaviors
21
3.6. Resource Actions
21
3.6.1. Return Values
22
.........4
Chapter
. ...Fencing
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
...........
.Chapter
. . . . . . . . 5.
. . .Lock
. . . . . Management
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
............
5.1. DLM Locking Model
27
5.2. Lock States
28
.Chapter
. . . . . . . . 6.
. . .Configuration
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .and
. . . .Administration
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .T.ools
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
............
6.1. Cluster Administration T ools
29
.Chapter
. . . . . . . . 7.
. . .Virtualization
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . and
. . . . .High
. . . . .Availability
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
...........
7.1. VMs as Highly Available Resources/Services
31

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

7.1.1. General Recommendations

7.2. Guest Clusters
7.2.1. Using fence_scsi and iSCSI Shared Storage
7.2.2. General Recommendations

32
33
34
34

. . . . . . . . . .History
Revision
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36
...........

Table of Contents

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

Introduction
T his document provides a high-level overview of the High Availability Add-On for Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 6.
Although the information in this document is an overview, you should have advanced working knowledge
of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and understand the concepts of server computing to gain a good
comprehension of the information.
For more information about using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, refer to the following resources:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide Provides information regarding installation of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Deployment Guide Provides information regarding the deployment,
configuration and administration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
For more information about this and related products for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, refer to the
following resources:
Configuring and Managing the High Availability Add-On Provides information about configuring and
managing the High Availability Add-On (also known as Red Hat Cluster) for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6.
Logical Volume Manager Administration Provides a description of the Logical Volume Manager
(LVM), including information on running LVM in a clustered environment.
Global File System 2: Configuration and Administration Provides information about installing,
configuring, and maintaining Red Hat GFS2 (Red Hat Global File System 2), which is included in the
Resilient Storage Add-On.
DM Multipath Provides information about using the Device-Mapper Multipath feature of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6.
Load Balancer Administration Provides information on configuring high-performance systems and
services with the Red Hat Load Balancer Add-On (Formerly known as Linux Virtual Server [LVS]).
Release Notes Provides information about the current release of Red Hat products.

Note
For information on best practices for deploying and upgrading Red Hat Enterprise Linux clusters
using the High Availability Add-On and Red Hat Global File System 2 (GFS2) refer to the article
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux Cluster, High Availability, and GFS Deployment Best Practices" on Red
Hat Customer Portal at . https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-40821.
T his document and other Red Hat documents are available in HT ML, PDF, and RPM versions on the Red
Hat Enterprise Linux Documentation CD and online at http://docs.redhat.com/.

1. Document Conventions
T his manual uses several conventions to highlight certain words and phrases and draw attention to
specific pieces of information.
In PDF and paper editions, this manual uses typefaces drawn from the Liberation Fonts set. T he
Liberation Fonts set is also used in HT ML editions if the set is installed on your system. If not, alternative
but equivalent typefaces are displayed. Note: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and later include the Liberation
Fonts set by default.

Introduction

1.1. Typographic Conventions

Four typographic conventions are used to call attention to specific words and phrases. T hese
conventions, and the circumstances they apply to, are as follows.
Mono-spaced Bold
Used to highlight system input, including shell commands, file names and paths. Also used to highlight
keys and key combinations. For example:
T o see the contents of the file m y_next_bestselling_novel in your current working
directory, enter the cat m y_next_bestselling_novel command at the shell prompt
and press Enter to execute the command.
T he above includes a file name, a shell command and a key, all presented in mono-spaced bold and all
distinguishable thanks to context.
Key combinations can be distinguished from an individual key by the plus sign that connects each part of
a key combination. For example:
Press Enter to execute the command.
Press Ctrl+Alt+F2 to switch to a virtual terminal.
T he first example highlights a particular key to press. T he second example highlights a key combination:
a set of three keys pressed simultaneously.
If source code is discussed, class names, methods, functions, variable names and returned values
mentioned within a paragraph will be presented as above, in m ono-spaced bold. For example:
File-related classes include filesystem for file systems, file for files, and dir for
directories. Each class has its own associated set of permissions.
Proportional Bold
T his denotes words or phrases encountered on a system, including application names; dialog box text;
labeled buttons; check-box and radio button labels; menu titles and sub-menu titles. For example:
Choose System Preferences Mouse from the main menu bar to launch Mouse
Preferences. In the Buttons tab, select the Left-handed m ouse check box and click
Close to switch the primary mouse button from the left to the right (making the mouse
suitable for use in the left hand).
T o insert a special character into a gedit file, choose Applications Accessories
Character Map from the main menu bar. Next, choose Search Find from the
Character Map menu bar, type the name of the character in the Search field and click
Next. T he character you sought will be highlighted in the Character T able. Double-click
this highlighted character to place it in the T ext to copy field and then click the Copy
button. Now switch back to your document and choose Edit Paste from the gedit menu
bar.
T he above text includes application names; system-wide menu names and items; application-specific
menu names; and buttons and text found within a GUI interface, all presented in proportional bold and all
distinguishable by context.
Mono-spaced Bold Italic or Proportional Bold Italic

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

Whether mono-spaced bold or proportional bold, the addition of italics indicates replaceable or variable
text. Italics denotes text you do not input literally or displayed text that changes depending on
circumstance. For example:
T o connect to a remote machine using ssh, type ssh username@ domain.name at a shell
prompt. If the remote machine is exam ple.com and your username on that machine is
john, type ssh john@ exam ple.com .
T he m ount -o rem ount file-system command remounts the named file system. For
example, to remount the /hom e file system, the command is m ount -o rem ount /hom e.
T o see the version of a currently installed package, use the rpm -q package command. It
will return a result as follows: package-version-release.
Note the words in bold italics above username, domain.name, file-system, package, version and
release. Each word is a placeholder, either for text you enter when issuing a command or for text
displayed by the system.
Aside from standard usage for presenting the title of a work, italics denotes the first use of a new and
important term. For example:
Publican is a DocBook publishing system.

1.2. Pull-quote Conventions

T erminal output and source code listings are set off visually from the surrounding text.
Output sent to a terminal is set in m ono-spaced rom an and presented thus:
books
books_tests

Desktop
Desktop1

documentation
downloads

drafts
images

mss
notes

photos
scripts

stuff
svgs

svn

Source-code listings are also set in m ono-spaced rom an but add syntax highlighting as follows:

Introduction

static int kvm_vm_ioctl_deassign_device(struct kvm *kvm,

struct kvm_assigned_pci_dev *assigned_dev)
{
int r = 0;
struct kvm_assigned_dev_kernel *match;
mutex_lock(&kvm->lock);
match = kvm_find_assigned_dev(&kvm->arch.assigned_dev_head,
assigned_dev->assigned_dev_id);
if (!match) {
printk(KERN_INFO "%s: device hasn't been assigned before, "
"so cannot be deassigned\n", __func__);
r = -EINVAL;
goto out;
}
kvm_deassign_device(kvm, match);
kvm_free_assigned_device(kvm, match);
out:
mutex_unlock(&kvm->lock);
return r;
}

1.3. Notes and Warnings

Finally, we use three visual styles to draw attention to information that might otherwise be overlooked.

Note
Notes are tips, shortcuts or alternative approaches to the task at hand. Ignoring a note should
have no negative consequences, but you might miss out on a trick that makes your life easier.

Important
Important boxes detail things that are easily missed: configuration changes that only apply to the
current session, or services that need restarting before an update will apply. Ignoring a box
labeled 'Important' will not cause data loss but may cause irritation and frustration.

Warning
Warnings should not be ignored. Ignoring warnings will most likely cause data loss.

2. We Need Feedback!
If you find a typographical error in this manual, or if you have thought of a way to make this manual
better, we would love to hear from you! Please submit a report in Bugzilla: http://bugzilla.redhat.com/
against the product Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, the component doc-High_Availability_Add-

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

On_Overview and version number: 6.1.

If you have a suggestion for improving the documentation, try to be as specific as possible when
describing it. If you have found an error, please include the section number and some of the surrounding
text so we can find it easily.

Chapter 1. High Availability Add-On Overview

Chapter 1. High Availability Add-On Overview

T he High Availability Add-On is a clustered system that provides reliability, scalability, and availability to
critical production services. T he following sections provide a high-level description of the components
and functions of the High Availability Add-On:
Section 1.1, Cluster Basics
Section 1.2, High Availability Add-On Introduction
Section 1.3, Cluster Infrastructure

1.1. Cluster Basics

A cluster is two or more computers (called nodes or members) that work together to perform a task.
T here are four major types of clusters:
Storage
High availability
Load balancing
High performance
Storage clusters provide a consistent file system image across servers in a cluster, allowing the servers
to simultaneously read and write to a single shared file system. A storage cluster simplifies storage
administration by limiting the installation and patching of applications to one file system. Also, with a
cluster-wide file system, a storage cluster eliminates the need for redundant copies of application data
and simplifies backup and disaster recovery. T he High Availability Add-On provides storage clustering in
conjunction with Red Hat GFS2 (part of the Resilient Storage Add-On).
high availability clusters provide highly available services by eliminating single points of failure and by
failing over services from one cluster node to another in case a node becomes inoperative. T ypically,
services in a high availability cluster read and write data (via read-write mounted file systems).
T herefore, a high availability cluster must maintain data integrity as one cluster node takes over control
of a service from another cluster node. Node failures in a high availability cluster are not visible from
clients outside the cluster. (high availability clusters are sometimes referred to as failover clusters.) T he
High Availability Add-On provides high availability clustering through its High Availability Service
Management component, rgm anager.
Load-balancing clusters dispatch network service requests to multiple cluster nodes to balance the
request load among the cluster nodes. Load balancing provides cost-effective scalability because you
can match the number of nodes according to load requirements. If a node in a load-balancing cluster
becomes inoperative, the load-balancing software detects the failure and redirects requests to other
cluster nodes. Node failures in a load-balancing cluster are not visible from clients outside the cluster.
Load balancing is available with the Load Balancer Add-On.
High-performance clusters use cluster nodes to perform concurrent calculations. A high-performance
cluster allows applications to work in parallel, therefore enhancing the performance of the applications.
(High performance clusters are also referred to as computational clusters or grid computing.)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

Note
T he cluster types summarized in the preceding text reflect basic configurations; your needs might
require a combination of the clusters described.
Additionally, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability Add-On contains support for
configuring and managing high availability servers only. It does not support high-performance
clusters.

1.2. High Availability Add-On Introduction

T he High Availability Add-On is an integrated set of software components that can be deployed in a
variety of configurations to suit your needs for performance, high availability, load balancing, scalability,
file sharing, and economy.
T he High Availability Add-On consists of the following major components:
Cluster infrastructure Provides fundamental functions for nodes to work together as a cluster:
configuration-file management, membership management, lock management, and fencing.
High availability Service Management Provides failover of services from one cluster node to
another in case a node becomes inoperative.
Cluster administration tools Configuration and management tools for setting up, configuring, and
managing a the High Availability Add-On. T he tools are for use with the Cluster Infrastructure
components, the high availability and Service Management components, and storage.

Note
Only single site clusters are fully supported at this time. Clusters spread across multiple physical
locations are not formally supported. For more details and to discuss multi-site clusters, please
speak to your Red Hat sales or support representative.
You can supplement the High Availability Add-On with the following components:
Red Hat GFS2 (Global File System 2) Part of the Resilient Storage Add-On, this provides a cluster
file system for use with the High Availability Add-On. GFS2 allows multiple nodes to share storage at
a block level as if the storage were connected locally to each cluster node. GFS2 cluster file system
requires a cluster infrastructure.
Cluster Logical Volume Manager (CLVM) Part of the Resilient Storage Add-On, this provides
volume management of cluster storage. CLVM support also requires cluster infrastructure.
Load Balancer Add-On Routing software that provides IP-Load-balancing. the Load Balancer AddOn runs in a pair of redundant virtual servers that distributes client requests evenly to real servers
that are behind the virtual servers.

1.3. Cluster Infrastructure

T he High Availability Add-On cluster infrastructure provides the basic functions for a group of computers
(called nodes or members) to work together as a cluster. Once a cluster is formed using the cluster
infrastructure, you can use other components to suit your clustering needs (for example, setting up a
cluster for sharing files on a GFS2 file system or setting up service failover). T he cluster infrastructure
performs the following functions:

10

Chapter 1. High Availability Add-On Overview

Cluster management
Lock management
Fencing
Cluster configuration management

11

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

Chapter 2. Cluster Management with CMAN

Cluster management manages cluster quorum and cluster membership. CMAN (an abbreviation for
cluster manager) performs cluster management in the High Availability Add-On for Red Hat Enterprise
Linux. CMAN is a distributed cluster manager and runs in each cluster node; cluster management is
distributed across all nodes in the cluster.
CMAN keeps track of membership by monitoring messages from other cluster nodes. When cluster
membership changes, the cluster manager notifies the other infrastructure components, which then take
appropriate action. If a cluster node does not transmit a message within a prescribed amount of time, the
cluster manager removes the node from the cluster and communicates to other cluster infrastructure
components that the node is not a member. Other cluster infrastructure components determine what
actions to take upon notification that node is no longer a cluster member. For example, Fencing would
fence the node that is no longer a member.
CMAN keeps track of cluster quorum by monitoring the count of cluster nodes. If more than half the
nodes are active, the cluster has quorum. If half the nodes (or fewer) are active, the cluster does not
have quorum, and all cluster activity is stopped. Cluster quorum prevents the occurrence of a "splitbrain" condition a condition where two instances of the same cluster are running. A split-brain
condition would allow each cluster instance to access cluster resources without knowledge of the other
cluster instance, resulting in corrupted cluster integrity.

2.1. Cluster Quorum

Quorum is a voting algorithm used by CMAN.
A cluster can only function correctly if there is general agreement between the members regarding their
status. We say a cluster has quorum if a majority of nodes are alive, communicating, and agree on the
active cluster members. For example, in a thirteen-node cluster, quorum is only reached if seven or more
nodes are communicating. If the seventh node dies, the cluster loses quorum and can no longer function.
A cluster must maintain quorum to prevent split-brain issues. If quorum was not enforced, quorum, a
communication error on that same thirteen-node cluster may cause a situation where six nodes are
operating on the shared storage, while another six nodes are also operating on it, independently.
Because of the communication error, the two partial-clusters would overwrite areas of the disk and
corrupt the file system. With quorum rules enforced, only one of the partial clusters can use the shared
storage, thus protecting data integrity.
Quorum doesn't prevent split-brain situations, but it does decide who is dominant and allowed to function
in the cluster. Should split-brain occur, quorum prevents more than one cluster group from doing
anything.
Quorum is determined by communication of messages among cluster nodes via Ethernet. Optionally,
quorum can be determined by a combination of communicating messages via Ethernet and through a
quorum disk. For quorum via Ethernet, quorum consists of a simple majority (50% of the nodes + 1
extra). When configuring a quorum disk, quorum consists of user-specified conditions.

Note
By default, each node has one quorum vote. Optionally, you can configure each node to have
more than one vote.

12

Chapter 2. Cluster Management with CMAN

2.1.1. Quorum Disks

A quorum disk or partition is a section of a disk that's set up for use with components of the cluster
project. It has a couple of purposes. Again, I'll explain with an example.
Suppose you have nodes A and B, and node A fails to get several of cluster manager's "heartbeat"
packets from node B. Node A doesn't know why it hasn't received the packets, but there are several
possibilities: either node B has failed, the network switch or hub has failed, node A's network adapter
has failed, or maybe just because node B was just too busy to send the packet. T hat can happen if your
cluster is extremely large, your systems are extremely busy or your network is flakey.
Node A doesn't know which is the case, and it doesn't know whether the problem lies within itself or with
node B. T his is especially problematic in a two-node cluster because both nodes, out of touch with one
another, can try to fence the other.
So before fencing a node, it would be nice to have another way to check if the other node is really alive,
even though we can't seem to contact it. A quorum disk gives you the ability to do just that. Before
fencing a node that's out of touch, the cluster software can check whether the node is still alive based
on whether it has written data to the quorum partition.
In the case of two-node systems, the quorum disk also acts as a tie-breaker. If a node has access to the
quorum disk and the network, that counts as two votes.
A node that has lost contact with the network or the quorum disk has lost a vote, and therefore may
safely be fenced.
Further information about configuring quorum disk parameters is provided in the chapters on Conga and
ccs administration in the Cluster Administration manual.

2.1.2. Tie-breakers
T ie-breakers are additional heuristics that allow a cluster partition to decide whether or not it is quorate
in the event of an even-split - prior to fencing. A typical tie-breaker construct is an IP tie-breaker,
sometimes called a ping node.
With such a tie-breaker, nodes not only monitor each other, but also an upstream router that is on the
same path as cluster communications. If the two nodes lose contact with each other, the one that wins is
the one that can still ping the upstream router. Of course, there are cases, such as a switch-loop, where
it is possible for two nodes to see the upstream router - but not each other - causing what is called a
split brain. T hat is why, even when using tie-breakers, it is important to ensure that fencing is configured
correctly.
Other types of tie-breakers include where a shared partition, often called a quorum disk, provides
additional details. clumanager 1.2.x (Red Hat Cluster Suite 3) had a disk tie-breaker that allowed
operation if the network went down as long as both nodes were still communicating over the shared
partition.
More complex tie-breaker schemes exist, such as QDisk (part of linux-cluster). QDisk allows arbitrary
heuristics to be specified. T hese allow each node to determine its own fitness for participation in the
cluster. It is often used as a simple IP tie-breaker, however. See the qdisk(5) manual page for more
information.
CMAN has no internal tie-breakers for various reasons. However, tie-breakers can be implemented
using the API. T his API allows quorum device registration and updating. For an example, look at the
QDisk source code.
You might need a tie-breaker if you:

13

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

Have a two node configuration with the fence devices on a different network path than the path used
for cluster communication
Have a two node configuration where fencing is at the fabric level - especially for SCSI reservations
However, if you have a correct network and fencing configuration in your cluster, a tie-breaker only adds
complexity, except in pathological cases.

14

Chapter 3. RGManager

Chapter 3. RGManager
RGManager manages and provides failover capabilities for collections of cluster resources called
services, resource groups, or resource trees. T hese resource groups are tree-structured, and have
parent-child dependency and inheritance relationships within each subtree.
How RGManager works is that it allows administrators to define, configure, and monitor cluster services.
In the event of a node failure, RGManager will relocate the clustered service to another node with
minimal service disruption. You can also restrict services to certain nodes, such as restricting httpd to
one group of nodes while m ysql can be restricted to a separate set of nodes.
T here are various processes and agents that combine to make RGManager work. T he following list
summarizes those areas.
Failover Domains - How the RGManager failover domain system works
Service Policies - Rgmanager's service startup and recovery policies
Resource T rees - How rgmanager's resource trees work, including start/stop orders and inheritance
Service Operational Behaviors - How rgmanager's operations work and what states mean
Virtual Machine Behaviors - Special things to remember when running VMs in a rgmanager cluster
ResourceActions - T he agent actions RGManager uses and how to customize their behavior from
the cluster.conf file.
Event Scripting - If rgmanager's failover and recovery policies do not fit in your environment, you can
customize your own using this scripting subsystem.

3.1. Failover Domains

A failover domain is an ordered subset of members to which a service may be bound. Failover domains,
while useful for cluster customization, are not required for operation.
T he following is a list of semantics governing the options as to how the different configuration options
affect the behavior of a failover domain.
preferred node or preferred member: T he preferred node was the member designated to run a given
service if the member is online. We can emulate this behavior by specifying an unordered,
unrestricted failover domain of exactly one member.
restricted domain: Services bound to the domain may only run on cluster members which are also
members of the failover domain. If no members of the failover domain are available, the service is
placed in the stopped state. In a cluster with several members, using a restricted failover domain can
ease configuration of a cluster service (such as httpd), which requires identical configuration on all
members that run the service. Instead of setting up the entire cluster to run the cluster service, you
must set up only the members in the restricted failover domain that you associate with the cluster
service.
unrestricted domain: T he default behavior, services bound to this domain may run on all cluster
members, but will run on a member of the domain whenever one is available. T his means that if a
service is running outside of the domain and a member of the domain comes online, the service will
migrate to that member.
ordered domain: T he order specified in the configuration dictates the order of preference of members
within the domain. T he highest-ranking member of the domain will run the service whenever it is
online. T his means that if member A has a higher-rank than member B, the service will migrate to A if
it was running on B if A transitions from offline to online.
unordered domain: T he default behavior, members of the domain have no order of preference; any
member may run the service. Services will always migrate to members of their failover domain

15

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

whenever possible, however, in an unordered domain.

failback: Services on members of an ordered failover domain should fail back to the node that it was
originally running on before the node failed, which is useful for frequently failing nodes to prevent
frequent service shifts between the failing node and the failover node.
Ordering, restriction, and nofailback are flags and may be combined in almost any way (ie,
ordered+restricted, unordered+unrestricted, etc.). T hese combinations affect both where services start
after initial quorum formation and which cluster members will take over services in the event that the
service has failed.

3.1.1. Behavior Examples

Given a cluster comprised of this set of members: {A, B, C, D, E, F, G}.
Ordered, restricted failover domain {A, B, C}
With nofailback unset: A service 'S' will always run on member 'A' whenever member 'A' is online
and there is a quorum. If all members of {A, B, C} are offline, the service will not run. If the
service is running on 'C' and 'A' transitions online, the service will migrate to 'A'.
With nofailback set: A service 'S' will run on the highest priority cluster member when a quorum
is formed. If all members of {A, B, C} are offline, the service will not run. If the service is running
on 'C' and 'A' transitions online, the service will remain on 'C' unless 'C' fails, at which point it will
fail over to 'A'.
Unordered, restricted failover domain {A, B, C}
A service 'S' will only run if there is a quorum and at least one member of {A, B, C} is online. If
another member of the domain transitions online, the service does not relocate.
Ordered, unrestricted failover domain {A, B, C}
With nofailback unset: A service 'S' will run whenever there is a quorum. If a member of the
failover domain is online, the service will run on the highest-priority member, otherwise a
member of the cluster will be chosen at random to run the service. T hat is, the service will run
on 'A' whenever 'A' is online, followed by 'B'.
With nofailback set: A service 'S' will run whenever there is a quorum. If a member of the failover
domain is online at quorum formation, the service will run on the highest-priority member of the
failover domain. T hat is, if 'B' is online (but 'A' is not), the service will run on 'B'. If, at some later
point, 'A' joins the cluster, the service will not relocate to 'A'.
Unordered, unrestricted failover domain {A, B, C}
T his is also called a "Set of Preferred Members". When one or more members of the failover
domain are online, the service will run on a nonspecific online member of the failover domain. If
another member of the failover domain transitions online, the service does not relocate.

3.2. Service Policies

RGManager has three service recovery policies which may be customized by the administrator on a perservice basis.

16

Chapter 3. RGManager

Note
T hese policies also apply to virtual machine resources.

3.2.1. Start Policy

RGManager by default starts all services when rgmanager boots and a quorum is present. T his
behavior may be altered by administrators.
autostart (default) - start the service when rgmanager boots and a quorum forms. If set to '0', the
cluster will not start the service and instead place it in to the disabled state.

3.2.2. Recovery Policy

T he recovery policy is the default action rgmanager takes when a service fails on a particular node.
T here are three available options, defined in the following list.
restart (default) - restart the service on the same node. If no other recovery policy is specified, this
recovery policy is used. If restarting fails, rgmanager falls back to relocate the service.
relocate - T ry to start the service on other node(s) in the cluster. If no other nodes successfully start
the service, the service is then placed in the stopped state.
disable - Do nothing. Place the service in to the disabled state.
restart-disable - Attempt to restart the service, in place. Place the service in to the disabled state if
restarting fails.

3.2.3. Restart Policy Extensions

When the restart recovery policy is used, you may additionally specify a maximum threshold for how
many restarts may occur on the same node in a given time. T here are two parameters available for
services called max_restarts and restart_expire_time which control this.
T he max_restarts parameter is an integer which specifies the maximum number of restarts before giving
up and relocating the service to another host in the cluster.
T he restart_expire_time parameter tells rgmanager how long to remember a restart event.
T he use of the two parameters together creates a sliding window for the number of tolerated restarts in
a given amount of time. For example:
<service name="myservice" max_restarts="3" restart_expire_time="300" ...>
...
</service>

T he above service tolerance is 3 restarts in 5 minutes. On the fourth service failure in 300 seconds,
rgmanager will not restart the service and instead relocate the service to another available host in the
cluster.

Note
You must specify both parameters together; the use of either parameter by itself is undefined.

17

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

3.3. Resource Trees - Basics / Definitions

T he following illustrates the structure of a resource tree, with a correpsonding list that defines each
area.
<service name="foo" ...>
<fs name="myfs" ...>
<script name="script_child"/>
</fs>
<ip address="10.1.1.2" .../>
</service>

Resource trees are XML representations of resources, their attributes, parent/child and sibling
relationships. T he root of a resource tree is almost always a special type of resource called a
service. Resource tree, resource group, and service are usually used interchangeably on this wiki.
From rgmanager's perspective, a resource tree is an atomic unit. All components of a resource tree
are started on the same cluster node.
fs:myfs and ip:10.1.1.2 are siblings
fs:myfs is the parent of script:script_child
script:script_child is the child of fs:myfs

3.3.1. Parent / Child Relationships, Dependencies, and Start Ordering

T he rules for parent/child relationships in the resource tree are fairly simple:
Parents are started before children
Children must all stop (cleanly) before a parent may be stopped
From these two, you could say that a child resource is dependent on its parent resource
In order for a resource to be considered in good health, all of its dependent children must also be in
good health

3.4. Service Operations and States

T he following operations apply to both services and virtual machines, except for the migrate operation,
which only works with virtual machines.

3.4.1. Service Operations

T he service operations are available commands a user may call to apply one of five available actions,
defined in the following list.
enable start the service, optionally on a preferred target and optionally according to failover
domain rules. In absence of either, the local host where clusvcadm is run will start the service. If the
original start fails, the service behaves as though a relocate operation was requested (see below). If
the operation succeeds, the service is placed in the started state.
disable stop the service and place into the disabled state. T his is the only permissible operation
when a service is in the failed state.
relocate move the service to another node. Optionally, the administrator may specify a preferred
node to receive the service, but the inability for the service to run on that host (e.g. if the service fails
to start or the host is offline) does not prevent relocation, and another node is chosen. Rgmanager
attempts to start the service on every permissible node in the cluster. If no permissible target node in
the cluster successfully starts the service, the relocation fails and the service is attempted to be
restarted on the original owner. If the original owner can not restart the service, the service is placed

18

Chapter 3. RGManager

in the stopped state.

stop stop the service and place into the stopped state.
migrate migrate the virtual machine to another node. T he administrator must specify a target node.
Depending on the failure, a failure to migrate may result with the virtual machine in the failed state or
in the started state on the original owner.
3.4 .1.1. T he freeze Operation
RGManager can freeze services. Doing so allows users to upgrade rgmanager, CMAN, or any other
software on the system while minimizing down-time of rgmanager-managed services.
It also allows maintenance of parts of rgmanager services. For example, if you have a database and a
web server in a single rgmanager service, you may freeze the rgmanager service, stop the database,
perform maintenance, restart the database, and unfreeze the service.
3.4 .1.1.1. Service Behaviors when Frozen
status checks are disabled
start operations are disabled
stop operations are disabled
Failover will not occur (even if you power off the service owner)

Important
Failure to follow these guidelines may result in resources being allocated on multiple hosts.
You must not stop all instances of rgmanager when a service is frozen unless you plan to
reboot the hosts prior to restarting rgmanager.
You must not unfreeze a service until the reported owner of the service rejoins the cluster and
restarts rgmanager.

3.4.2. Service States

T he following list defines the states of services managed by RGManager.
disabled T he service will remain in the disabled state until either an administrator re-enables the
service or the cluster loses quorum (at which point, the autostart parameter is evaluated). An
administrator may enable the service from this state.
failed T he service is presumed dead. T his state occurs whenever a resource's stop operation
fails. Administrator must verify that there are no allocated resources (mounted file systems, etc.) prior
to issuing a disable request. T he only action which can take place from this state is disable.
stopped When in the stopped state, the service will be evaluated for starting after the next service
or node transition. T his is a very temporary measure. An administrator may disable or enable the
service from this state.
recovering T he cluster is trying to recover the service. An administrator may disable the service to
prevent recovery if desired.
started If a service status check fails, recover it according to the service recovery policy. If the host
running the service fails, recover it following failover domain and exclusive service rules. An
administrator may relocate, stop, disable, and (with virtual machines) migrate the service from this
state.

19

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

Note
Other states, such as starting and stopping are special transitional states of the started
state.

3.5. Virtual Machine Behaviors

RGManager handles virtual machines slightly differently from other non-VM services.

3.5.1. Normal Operations

VMs managed by rgmanager should only be administered using clusvcadm or another cluster aware
tool. Most of the behaviors are common with normal services. T his includes:
Starting (enabling)
Stopping (disabling)
Status monitoring
Relocation
Recovery
T o learn more about highly available virtual services, rever to Chapter 7, Virtualization and High
Availability.

3.5.2. Migration
In addition to normal service operations, virtual machines support one behavior not supported by other
services: migration. Migration minimizes downtime of virtual machines by removing the requirement for a
start/stop in order to change the location of a virtual machine within a cluster.
T here are two types of migration supported by rgmanager which are selected on a per-VM basis by the
migrate attribute:
live (default) the virtual machine continues to run while most of its memory contents are copied to
the destination host. T his minimizes the inaccessibility of the VM (typically well under 1 second) at
the expense of performance of the VM during the migration and total amount of time it takes for the
migration to complete.
pause - the virtual machine is frozen in memory while its memory contents are copied to the
destination host. T his minimizes the amount of time it takes for a virtual machine migration to
complete.
Which migration style you use is dependent on availability and performance requirements. For example,
a live migration may mean 29 seconds of degraded performance and 1 second of complete unavailability
while a pause migration may mean 8 seconds of complete unavailability and no otherwise degraded
performance.

Important
A virtual machine may be a component of service, but doing this disables all forms of migration
and most of the below convenience features.
Additionally, the use of migration with KVM requires careful configuration of ssh.

20

Chapter 3. RGManager

3.5.3. RGManager Virtual Machine Features

T he following section lists the various ways RGManager eases use of managing virtual machines.
3.5.3.1. Virtual Machine T racking
Starting a virtual machine with clusvcadm if the VM is already running will cause rgmanager to search
the cluster for the VM and mark the VM as started wherever it is found.
Administrators who accidentally migrate a VM between cluster nodes with non-cluster tools such as
virsh will cause rgmanager to search the cluster for the VM and mark the VM as started wherever it
is found.

Note
If the VM is running in multiple locations, RGManager does not warn you.

3.5.3.2. T ransient Domain Support

Rgmanager supports transient virtual machines which are supported by libvirt. T his enables rgmanager
to create and remove virtual machines on the fly, helping reduce the possibility of accidental doublestarts of virtual machines due to the use of non-cluster tools.
Support of transient virtual machines also enables you to store libvirt XML description files on a
clustered file system so that you do not have to manually keep /etc/libvirt/qem u in sync across
the cluster.
3.5.3.2.1. Management Features
Adding or removing a VM from cluster.conf will not start or stop the VM; it will simply cause rgmanager to
start or stop paying attention to the VM
Failback (moving to a more preferred node) is performed using migration to minimize downtime.

3.5.4. Unhandled Behaviors

T he following conditions and user actions are not supported in RGManager.
Using a non-cluster-aware tool (such as virsh or xm) to manipulate a virtual machine's state or
configuration while the cluster is managing the virtual machine. Checking the virtual machine's state
is fine (e.g. virsh list, virsh dumpxml).
Migrating a cluster-managed VM to a non-cluster node or a node in the cluster which is not running
rgmanager. Rgmanager will restart the VM in the previous location, causing two instances of the VM
to be running, resulting in file system corruption.

3.6. Resource Actions

RGManager expects the following return values from resource agents:
start - start the resource
stop - stop the resource
status - check the status of the resource
metadata - report the OCF RA XML metadata

21

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

3.6.1. Return Values

OCF has a wide range of return codes for the monitor operation, but since rgmanager calls status, it
relies almost exclusively on SysV-style return codes.
0 - success
stop after stop or stop when not running must return success
start after start or start when running must return success
nonzero - failure
if the stop operation ever returns a nonzero value, the service enters the failed state and the
service must be recovered manually.

22

Chapter 4. Fencing

Chapter 4. Fencing
Fencing is the disconnection of a node from the cluster's shared storage. Fencing cuts off I/O from
shared storage, thus ensuring data integrity. T he cluster infrastructure performs fencing through the
fence daemon, fenced.
When CMAN determines that a node has failed, it communicates to other cluster-infrastructure
components that the node has failed. fenced, when notified of the failure, fences the failed node. Other
cluster-infrastructure components determine what actions to take that is, they perform any recovery
that needs to done. For example, DLM and GFS2, when notified of a node failure, suspend activity until
they detect that fenced has completed fencing the failed node. Upon confirmation that the failed node is
fenced, DLM and GFS2 perform recovery. DLM releases locks of the failed node; GFS2 recovers the
journal of the failed node.
T he fencing program determines from the cluster configuration file which fencing method to use. T wo
key elements in the cluster configuration file define a fencing method: fencing agent and fencing device.
T he fencing program makes a call to a fencing agent specified in the cluster configuration file. T he
fencing agent, in turn, fences the node via a fencing device. When fencing is complete, the fencing
program notifies the cluster manager.
T he High Availability Add-On provides a variety of fencing methods:
Power fencing A fencing method that uses a power controller to power off an inoperable node.
storage fencing A fencing method that disables the Fibre Channel port that connects storage to an
inoperable node.
Other fencing Several other fencing methods that disable I/O or power of an inoperable node,
including IBM Bladecenters, PAP, DRAC/MC, HP ILO, IPMI, IBM RSA II, and others.
Figure 4.1, Power Fencing Example shows an example of power fencing. In the example, the fencing
program in node A causes the power controller to power off node D. Figure 4.2, Storage Fencing
Example shows an example of storage fencing. In the example, the fencing program in node A causes
the Fibre Channel switch to disable the port for node D, disconnecting node D from storage.

23

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

Figure 4 .1. Power Fencing Example

Figure 4 .2. Storage Fencing Example

Specifying a fencing method consists of editing a cluster configuration file to assign a fencing-method
name, the fencing agent, and the fencing device for each node in the cluster.
T he way in which a fencing method is specified depends on if a node has either dual power supplies or
multiple paths to storage. If a node has dual power supplies, then the fencing method for the node must
specify at least two fencing devices one fencing device for each power supply (refer to Figure 4.3,
Fencing a Node with Dual Power Supplies). Similarly, if a node has multiple paths to Fibre Channel
storage, then the fencing method for the node must specify one fencing device for each path to Fibre
Channel storage. For example, if a node has two paths to Fibre Channel storage, the fencing method
should specify two fencing devices one for each path to Fibre Channel storage (refer to Figure 4.4,
Fencing a Node with Dual Fibre Channel Connections).

24

Chapter 4. Fencing

Figure 4 .3. Fencing a Node with Dual Power Supplies

Figure 4 .4 . Fencing a Node with Dual Fibre Channel Connections

25

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

You can configure a node with one fencing method or multiple fencing methods. When you configure a
node for one fencing method, that is the only fencing method available for fencing that node. When you
configure a node for multiple fencing methods, the fencing methods are cascaded from one fencing
method to another according to the order of the fencing methods specified in the cluster configuration
file. If a node fails, it is fenced using the first fencing method specified in the cluster configuration file for
that node. If the first fencing method is not successful, the next fencing method specified for that node is
used. If none of the fencing methods is successful, then fencing starts again with the first fencing
method specified, and continues looping through the fencing methods in the order specified in the
cluster configuration file until the node has been fenced.
For detailed information on configuring fence devices, refer to the corresponding chapter in the Cluster
Administration manual.

26

Chapter 5. Lock Management

Chapter 5. Lock Management

Lock management is a common cluster-infrastructure service that provides a mechanism for other
cluster infrastructure components to synchronize their access to shared resources. In a Red Hat cluster,
DLM (Distributed Lock Manager) is the lock manager.
A lock manager is a traffic cop who controls access to resources in the cluster, such as access to a
GFS file system. You need it because without a lock manager, there would be no control over access to
your shared storage, and the nodes in the cluster would corrupt each other's data.
As implied in its name, DLM is a distributed lock manager and runs in each cluster node; lock
management is distributed across all nodes in the cluster. GFS2 and CLVM use locks from the lock
manager. GFS2 uses locks from the lock manager to synchronize access to file system metadata (on
shared storage). CLVM uses locks from the lock manager to synchronize updates to LVM volumes and
volume groups (also on shared storage). In addition, rgm anager uses DLM to synchronize service
states.

5.1. DLM Locking Model

T he DLM locking model provides a rich set of locking modes and both synchronous and asynchronous
execution. An application acquires a lock on a lock resource. A one-to-many relationship exists between
lock resources and locks: a single lock resource can have multiple locks associated with it.
A lock resource can correspond to an actual object, such as a file, a data structure, a database, or an
executable routine, but it does not have to correspond to one of these things. T he object you associate
with a lock resource determines the granularity of the lock. For example, locking an entire database is
considered locking at coarse granularity. Locking each item in a database is considered locking at a fine
granularity.
T he DLM locking model supports:
Six locking modes that increasingly restrict access to a resource
T he promotion and demotion of locks through conversion
Synchronous completion of lock requests
Asynchronous completion
Global data through lock value blocks
T he DLM provides its own mechanisms to support its locking features, such as inter-node
communication to manage lock traffic and recovery protocols to re-master locks after a node failure or to
migrate locks when a node joins the cluster. However, the DLM does not provide mechanisms to actually
manage the cluster itself. T herefore the DLM expects to operate in a cluster in conjunction with another
cluster infrastructure environment that provides the following minimum requirements:
T he node is a part of a cluster.
All nodes agree on cluster membership and has quorum.
An IP address must communicate with the DLM on a node. Normally the DLM uses T CP/IP for internode communications which restricts it to a single IP address per node (though this can be made
more redundant using the bonding driver). T he DLM can be configured to use SCT P as its inter-node
transport which allows multiple IP addresses per node.
T he DLM works with any cluster infrastructure environments that provide the minimum requirements
listed above. T he choice of an open source or closed source environment is up to the user. However,
the DLMs main limitation is the amount of testing performed with different environments.

27

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

5.2. Lock States

A lock state indicates the current status of a lock request. A lock is always in one of three states:
Granted T he lock request succeeded and attained the requested mode.
Converting A client attempted to change the lock mode and the new mode is incompatible with an
existing lock.
Blocked T he request for a new lock could not be granted because conflicting locks exist.
A lock's state is determined by its requested mode and the modes of the other locks on the same
resource.

28

Chapter 6. Configuration and Administration Tools

Chapter 6. Configuration and Administration Tools

T he cluster configuration file, /etc/cluster/cluster.conf specifies the High Availability Add-On
configuration.T he configuration file is an XML file that describes the following cluster characteristics:
Cluster name Specifies the cluster name, cluster configuration file revision level, and basic fence
timing properties used when a node joins a cluster or is fenced from the cluster.
Cluster Specifies each node of the cluster, specifying node name, node ID, number of quorum
votes, and fencing method for that node.
Fence Device Specifies fence devices in the cluster. Parameters vary according to the type of
fence device. For example for a power controller used as a fence device, the cluster configuration
defines the name of the power controller, its IP address, login, and password.
Managed Resources Specifies resources required to create cluster services. Managed resources
includes the definition of failover domains, resources (for example an IP address), and services.
T ogether the managed resources define cluster services and failover behavior of the cluster
services.
T he cluster configuration is automatically validated according to the cluster schema at
/usr/share/cluster/cluster.rng during startup time and when a configuration is reloaded. Also,
you can validate a cluster configuration any time by using the ccs_config_validate command.
An annotated schema is available for viewing at /usr/share/doc/cm anX.Y.ZZ/cluster_conf.htm l (for example /usr/share/doc/cm an3.0.12/cluster_conf.htm l).
Configuration validation checks for the following basic errors:
XML validity Checks that the configuration file is a valid XML file.
Configuration options Checks to make sure that options (XML elements and attributes) are valid.
Option values Checks that the options contain valid data (limited).

6.1. Cluster Administration Tools

Managing Red Hat High Availability Add-On software consists of using configuration tools to specify the
relationship among the cluster components. T he following cluster configuration tools are available with
Red Hat High Availability Add-On:
Conga T his is a comprehensive user interface for installing, configuring, and managing Red Hat
High Availability Add-On. Refer to Configuring and Managing the High Availability Add-On for
information about configuring and managing High Availability Add-On with Conga.
Luci T his is the application server that provides the user interface for Conga. It allows users to
manage cluster services and provides access to help and online documentation when needed.
Ricci T his is a service daemon that manages distribution of the cluster configuration. Users
pass configuration details using the Luci interface, and the configuration is loaded in to corosync
for distribution to cluster nodes.
As of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 release and later, the Red Hat High Availability Add-On
provides support for the ccs cluster configuration command, which allows an administrator to create,
modify and view the cluster.conf cluster configuration file. Refer to the Cluster Administration manual
for information about configuring and managing the High Availability Add-On with the ccs comand.

29

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

Note
system -config-cluster is not available in RHEL 6.

30

Chapter 7. Virtualization and High Availability

Chapter 7. Virtualization and High Availability

Various virtualization platforms are supported in conjunction with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 using the
High Availability and Resilient Storage Add-Ons. T here are two supported use cases for virtualization in
conjunction with Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability Add-on.
T his refers to RHEL Cluster/HA running on bare metal hosts that are themselves usable as virtualization
platforms. In this mode you can configure the cluster resource manager (rgmanager) to manage virtual
machines (guests) as highly available resources.
VMs as Highly Available Resources/Services
Guest Clusters

7.1. VMs as Highly Available Resources/Services

Both RHEL HA and RHEV provide mechanisms to provide HA virtual machines. Given the overlap in
functionality, care should be taken to chose the right product to fit your specific use case. Here are some
guidelines to consider when choosing between RHEL HA and RHEV for providing HA of VMs.
For Virtual machine and physical host counts:
If a large number of VMs are being made HA across a large number of physical hosts, using RHEV
may be the better solution as it has more sophisticated algorithms for managing VM placement that
take into consideration things like host CPU, memory and load information.
If a small number of VMs are being made HA across a small number of physical hosts, using RHEL
HA may be the better solution because less additional infrastructure is required. T he smallest RHEL
HA VM solution needs two physical hosts for a 2 node cluster. T he smallest RHEV solution requires
4 nodes: 2 to provide HA for the RHEVM server and 2 to act as VM hosts.
T here is no strict guideline for how many hosts or VMs would be considered a 'large number'. But
keep in mind that the maximum number of hosts in a single RHEL HA Cluster is 16, and that any
Cluster with 8 or more hosts will need an architecture review from Red Hat to determine
supportability.
Virtual machine usage:
If your HA VMs are providing services that are used are providing shared infrastructure, either RHEL
HA or RHEV can be used.
If you need to provide HA for a small set of critical services that are running inside of VMs, RHEL HA
or RHEV can be used.
If you are looking to provide infrastructure to allow rapid provisioning of VMs, RHEV should be used.
RHEV VM HA is meant to be dynamic. Addition of new VMs to the RHEV 'cluster' can be done
easily and is fully supported.
RHEL VM HA is not meant to be a highly dynamic environment. A cluster with a fixed set of VMs
should be set up and then for the lifetime of the cluster it is not recommended to add or remove
additional VMs
RHEL HA should not be used to provide infrastructure for creating cloud-like environments due to the
static nature of cluster configuration as well as the relatively low physical node count maximum (16
nodes)
RHEL 5 supports two virtualization platforms. Xen has been supported since RHEL 5.0 release. In RHEL
5.4 KVM was introduced.
RHEL 6 only supports KVM as a virtualization platform.

31

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

RHEL 5 AP Cluster supports both KVM and Xen for use in running virtual machines that are managed by
the host cluster infrastructure.
RHEL 6 HA supports KVM for use in running virtual machines that are managed by the host cluster
infrastructure.
T he following lists the deployment scenarios currently supported by Red Hat:
RHEL 5.0+ supports Xen in conjunction with RHEL AP Cluster
RHEL 5.4 introduced support for KVM virtual machines as managed resources in RHEL AP Cluster
as a T echnology Preview.
RHEL 5.5+ elevates support for KVM virtual machines to be fully supported.
RHEL 6.0+ supports KVM virtual machines as highly available resources in the RHEL 6 High
Availability Add-On.
RHEL 6.0+ does not support Xen virtual machines with the RHEL 6 High Availability Add-On, since
RHEL 6 no longer supports Xen.

Note
For updated information and special notes regarding supported deployment scenarios, refer to
the following Red Hat Knowledgebase entry:
https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-46375
T he types of virtual machines that are run as managed resources does not matter. Any guest that is
supported by either Xen or KVM in RHEL can be used as a highly available guest. T his includes variants
of RHEL (RHEL3, RHEL4, RHEL5) and several variants of Microsoft Windows. Check the RHEL
documentation to find the latest list of supported guest operating systems under each hypervisor.

7.1.1. General Recommendations

In RHEL 5.3 and below, rgmanager utilized the native Xen interfaces for managing Xen domU's
(guests). In RHEL 5.4 this was changed to use libvirt for both the Xen and KVM hypervisors to
provide a consistent interface between both hypervisor types. In addition to this architecture change
there were numerous bug fixes released in RHEL 5.4 and 5.4.z, so it is advisable to upgrade your
host clusters to at least the latest RHEL 5.5 packages before configuring Xen managed services.
For KVM managed services you must upgrade to RHEL 5.5 as this is the first version of RHEL where
this functionality is fully supported.
Always check the latest RHEL errata before deploying a Cluster to make sure that you have the
latest fixes for known issues or bugs.
Mixing hosts of different hypervisor types is not supported. T he host cluster must either be all Xen or
all KVM based.
Host hardware should be provisioned such that they are capable of absorbing relocated guests from
multiple other failed hosts without causing a host to overcommit memory or severely overcommit
virtual CPUs. If enough failures occur to cause overcommit of either memory of virtual CPUs this can
lead to severe performance degradation and potentially cluster failure.
Directly using the xm or libvirt tools (virsh, virt-manager) to manage (live migrate, stop. start) virtual
machines that are under rgmanager control is not supported or recommended since this would
bypass the cluster management stack.
Each VM name must be unique cluster wide, including local-only / non-cluster VMs. Libvirtd only
enforces unique names on a per-host basis. If you clone a VM by hand, you must change the name

32

Chapter 7. Virtualization and High Availability

in the clone's configuration file.

7.2. Guest Clusters

T his refers to RHEL Cluster/HA running inside of virtualized guests on a variety of virtualization
platforms. In this use-case RHEL Clustering/HA is primarily used to make the applications running inside
of the guests highly available. T his use-case is similar to how RHEL Clustering/HA has always been
used in traditional bare-metal hosts. T he difference is that Clustering runs inside of guests instead.
T he following is a list of virtualization platforms and the level of support currently available for running
guest clusters using RHEL Cluster/HA. In the below list, RHEL 6 Guests encompass both the High
Availability (core clustering) and Resilient Storage Add-Ons (GFS2, clvmd and cmirror).
RHEL 5.3+ Xen hosts fully supports running guest clusters where the guest operating systems are
also RHEL 5.3 or above:
Xen guest clusters can use either fence_xvm or fence_scsi for guest fencing.
Usage of fence_xvm/fence_xvmd requires a host cluster to be running to support fence_xvmd
and fence_xvm must be used as the guest fencing agent on all clustered guests.
Shared storage can be provided by either iSCSI or Xen shared block devices backed by either
host block storage or by file backed storage (raw images).
RHEL 5.5+ KVM hosts do not support running guest clusters.
RHEL 6.1+ KVM hosts support running guest clusters where the guest operating systems are either
RHEL 6.1+ or RHEL 5.6+. RHEL 4 guests are not supported.
Mixing bare metal cluster nodes with cluster nodes that are virtualized is permitted.
RHEL 5.6+ guest clusters can use either fence_xvm or fence_scsi for guest fencing.
RHEL 6.1+ guest clusters can use either fence_xvm (in the fence-virt package) or fence_scsi
for guest fencing.
T he RHEL 6.1+ KVM Hosts must use fence_virtd if the guest cluster is using fence_virt or
fence_xvm as the fence agent. If the guest cluster is using fence_scsi then fence_virtd on the
hosts is not required.
fence_virtd can operate in three modes:
Standalone mode where the host to guest mapping is hard coded and live migration of guests
is not allowed
Using the Openais Checkpoint service to track live-migrations of clustered guests. T his
requires a host cluster to be running.
Using the Qpid Management Framework (QMF) provided by the libvirt-qpid package. T his
utilizes QMF to track guest migrations without requiring a full host cluster to be present.
Shared storage can be provided by either iSCSI or KVM shared block devices backed by either
host block storage or by file backed storage (raw images).
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Management (RHEV-M) versions 2.2+ and 3.0 currently support
RHEL 5.6+ and RHEL 6.1+ clustered guests.
Guest clusters must be homogeneous (either all RHEL 5.6+ guests or all RHEL 6.1+ guests).
Mixing bare metal cluster nodes with cluster nodes that are virtualized is permitted.
Fencing is provided by fence_scsi in RHEV-M 2.2+ and by both fence_scsi and fence_rhevm in
RHEV-M 3.0. Fencing is supported using fence_scsi as described below:
Use of fence_scsi with iSCSI storage is limited to iSCSI servers that support SCSI 3 Persistent
Reservations with the preempt-and-abort command. Not all iSCSI servers support this
functionality. Check with your storage vendor to ensure that your server is compliant with SCSI
3 Persistent Reservation support. Note that the iSCSI server shipped with Red Hat Enterprise

33

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

Linux does not presently support SCSI 3 Persistent Reservations, so it is not suitable for use
with fence_scsi.
VMware vSphere 4.1, VMware vCenter 4.1, VMware ESX and ESXi 4.1 supports running guest
clusters where the guest operating systems are RHEL 5.7+ or RHEL 6.2+. Version 5.0 of VMware
vSphere, vCenter, ESX and ESXi are also supported; however due to an incomplete WDSL schema
provided in the initial release of Vmware vSphere 5.0, the fence_vmware_soap utility does not work
on the default install. Refer to the Red Hat Knowledgebase https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/ for
updated procedures to fix this issue.
Guest clusters must be homogeneous (either all RHEL 5.7+ guests or all RHEL 6.1+ guests).
Mixing bare metal cluster nodes with cluster nodes that are virtualized is permitted.
T he fence_vmware_soap agent requires the 3rd party VMware perl APIs. T his software package
must be downloaded from VMware's web site and installed onto the RHEL clustered guests.
Alternatively, fence_scsi can be used to provide fencing as described below.
Shared storage can be provided by either iSCSI or VMware raw shared block devices.
Usage of VMware ESX guest clusters is supported using either fence_vmware_so_ap or
fence_scsi.
Usage of Hyper-V guest clusters is unsupported at this time.

7.2.1. Using fence_scsi and iSCSI Shared Storage

In all of the above virtualization environments, fence_scsi and iSCSI storage can be used in place of
native shared storage and the native fence devices.
fence_scsi can be used to provide I/O fencing for shared storage provided over iSCSI if the iSCSI
target properly supports SCSI 3 persistent reservations and the preempt and abort command. Check
with your storage vendor to determine if your iSCSI solution supports the above functionality.
T he iSCSI server software shipped with RHEL does not support SCSI 3 persistent reservations,
therefore it cannot be used with fence_scsi. It is suitable for use as a shared storage solution in
conjunction with other fence devices like fence_vmware or fence_rhevm, however.
If using fence_scsi on all guests, a host cluster is not required (in the RHEL 5 Xen/KVM and RHEL 6
KVM Host use cases)
If fence_scsi is used as the fence agent, all shared storage must be over iSCSI. Mixing of iSCSI and
native shared storage is not permitted.

7.2.2. General Recommendations

As stated above it is recommended to upgrade both the hosts and guests to the latest RHEL
packages before using virtualization capabilities, as there have been many enhancements and bug
fixes.
Mixing virtualization platforms (hypervisors) underneath guest clusters is not supported. All
underlying hosts must use the same virtualization technology.
It is not supported to run all guests in a guest cluster on a single physical host as this provides no
high availability in the event of a single host failure. T his configuration can be used for prototype or
development purposes, however.
Best practices include the following:
It is not necessary to have a single host per guest, but this configuration does provide the
highest level of availability since a host failure only affects a single node in the cluster. If you have
a 2 to 1 mapping (two guests in a single cluster per physical host) this means a single host
failure results in two guest failures. T herefore it is advisable to get as close to a 1 to 1 mapping
as possible.
Mixing multiple independent guest clusters on the same set of physical hosts is not supported at

34

Chapter 7. Virtualization and High Availability

this time when using the fence_xvm/fence_xvmd or fence_virt/fence_virtd fence agents.

Mixing multiple independent guest clusters on the same set of physical hosts will work if using
fence_scsi + iSCSI storage or if using fence_vmware + VMware (ESX/ESXi and vCenter).
Running non-clustered guests on the same set of physical hosts as a guest cluster is supported,
but since hosts will physically fence each other if a host cluster is configured, these other guests
will also be terminated during a host fencing operation.
Host hardware should be provisioned such that memory or virtual CPU overcommit is avoided.
Overcommitting memory or virtual CPU will result in performance degradation. If the performance
degradation becomes critical the cluster heartbeat could be affected which may result in cluster
failure.

35

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 High Availability Add-On Overview

Revision History
Revision 1-9.4 00
Rebuild with publican 4.0.0

2013-10-31

Rdiger Landmann

Revision 1-9
Mon Feb 18 2013
fix Author_Group.xml file to fix GA build error

John Ha

Revision 1-6
Mon Feb 18 2013
fix Author_Group.xml file to fix GA build error

John Ha

Revision 1-5
Mon Feb 18 2013
Release for GA of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4

John Ha

Revision 1-4
Mon Nov 28 2012
Release for Beta of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4

John Ha

Revision 1-3
Mon Jun 18 2012
Release for GA of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3

John Ha

Revision 1-2
Update for 6.2 release

Fri Aug 26 2011

John Ha

Revision 1-1
Initial Release

Wed Nov 10 2010

Paul Kennedy

36